The Beating of Leaden Feathered Wings
by Koi Lungfish
Summary: G1, preEarth - Starscream finds Dreadmoon's city to be under a strange darkness.


**Title: The Beating of Leaden-Feathered Wings  
Author: Koi Lungfish  
Disclaimer: Based on characters and situations from The Transformers ((c) 1986 Hasbro, Ltd). Used without permission. Text (c) 2007, Koi Lung Fish (Mark of Lung. All Rights Reserved.)  
Continuity: G1 cartoon, pre-Earth.**

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Absolute night uncoiled over Kalis and spread out in great ragged spirals that dragged heavy edges over deserted hills. Whorls of silence brushed over the mountains, fluttered splayed fronds over the plains and reached out to touch Starscream with cold and feathery fingers. Below, the city-state was dimmed to purple velvet, amidst the fibres of which glittered remnants of cut diamond, tiny glints of fortress lights bright-barricaded amongst the vastness of the sudden, gentle night.

Starscream passed into the cool calm of the windless dimness, flying straight towards the tower at the heart of a night that fell at midday. Overhead the cloudless sky was without a star, sunless, moonless, sans even the speeding spark of a satellite. All around was hush, shush, and shadow.

_(Come to me, my star,)_ said the soft voice in the soothed darkness, an ether-call through the lifeless night. Even the fragmented stars below twinkled without movement. All was still.

_(I am coming,)_ Starscream replied, and heard Dreadmoon's sigh of anticipation that ruffled the air, a breath of life in the dead silence. It rushed across his wings, prickling him, setting his sensors on edge.

The night closed in like a net. Starscream felt the narrowness of the skies, and a shiver ran from his wingtips to the base of his backstrut.

Over the low hills and the shattered old cities, over the breaking land, over the barren riverbed; then came Kalis. Towers plushed with shadows rose to thicket the skies, to choke up the air, to grip the wind and steal the light. Within the towers there were only the most wan of violet lights; between the towers, not even reflections. Kalis' shadows were thick enough to feel, tracing Starscream's wing-edges with soft caresses.

Leaden feathers of night stroked him, soft edges ripping the air, tearing out the life-breath of the wind. Dreadmoon's calm smothered the cityscape.

Starscream blazed over the crest of the city, the ring of highest towers risen up like a hedge of thorns above the city's ancient curtain-wall. His heels were fire, his metal bright, his body a living star, the only star shining to challenge the night above and below. Behind him the horizon was a ribbon of fading purple; above, the airless sky without stars, below, the feeble stars without a sky.

Over the crest, and the hushing cup of Kalis lay below as a white pool, a glimmering handful of pale towers held apart by riverless abysses. Light dripped from the Amnimount, spilled over the slender towers and splashed across the flanks of the vast hulk that brooded in the centre of Kalis. The darkness generator squatted hunchbacked, sucking in the green and golden lights of Kalis and spewing forth the noxious, airless nightfall as a great pillar that rose, fluted with rippling movement, to become the depthless, crowded sky. It purred a throaty sound, a deep hum that stirred not the air but the space beneath it. The cloaking darkness thickened with the throb and Starscream's wings quivered against the enclosing shroud.

The lightless column rose up into the lightless sky, pure cloth of black; Dreadmoon stretching vast shadowed wings across his empire until he could hold within his wingspan every city, every person, every light.

Again, the shiver.

Within the pillar of sudden dusk turned a shape, a shifting amongst shifting uncolour. Starscream plunged into the bowl of light, across the field of white-lance tower-tops, towards the thrumming night-machine. The gulfs below screamed with shadow, struggling to cough out the stifling un-air. Every tower was sealed, every door locked; faint shapes glimpsed at windows drew back at his glance, startled at his brightness amongst the throttling, throbbing night.

The darkness generator hummed beneath him, making the sky intolerable in its vibrance. Starscream pressed on, to the column where the dark shape moved.

Dreadmoon emerged from the pillar of rising night with shadows spilling from his wings like smoke. He descended like a kneeling thundercloud, spreading out moth-soft streamers of shushing shade. His face was a pale dagger framed by the silhouette towers of his helmet, his hands held out in dusk-draped welcome.

_(You have come, my star,)_ Dreadmoon murmured amongst the thronging, shuddering airlessness.

_(You have ruined the skies,)_ Starscream accused him, hovering with his hands on his hips and glaring red knives.

_(I have made a night that a sun cannot break,)_ Dreadmoon said, ghosting down to Starscream and spreading the lightless mesh around him. Night unfurled from Dreadmoon in ragged trails, heavy-feathered wings tearing the air. _(Only you will shine here, my starlight.)_

_(Tell me this monstrosity has some military application,)_ Starscream groused, folding his arms, ignoring the encircling tatters that shredded Kalis' bright light and crouched around him, testing the boundaries of his nerve.

_(Unbroken darkness breaks minds,)_ Dreadmoon said simply, gesturing towards the north, to the ice-hung towers of Iacon half a world away. _(Let us give the Autobots a night without end, without even starlight. Enough.)_ He held out his hands, wrapped in tatters of spun night. _(Come to me, my star.)_

Starscream laughed, bright and bold and unafraid, scorning the least twinge of reserve. He went forward into Dreadmoon's arms, where all light but his would be shushed out under the beating of leaden-feathered wings.

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** Author's notes & addenda:  
Feedback always welcomed.  
**


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